“Zabriskie Point” (1970) – Michelangelo Antonioni
After four opaque, but unimpeachable meditations on modern alienation and ennui (“L’avventura,” “La Notte” “Eclipse,” “Red Desert”) and one existential murder mystery cum ‘60s mod masterpiece (“Blow-Up”), Italian maestro Michelangelo Antonioni was bound to lose his balance, and falter he did with his romanticized, let’s-fight-the-man counter-culture fiasco, “Zabriskie Point.” Antonioni’s first mistake was hiring two flat unknowns who can’t act (Mark Frechette, Daria Halprin) to play revolutionary hippie lovers on the run after a policeman is killed during a student riot (in typical Antonioni fashion, it’s unclear whether the rebel without a clear cause in the male half of this duo is responsible). Featuring trippy original music by Pink Floyd and Jerry Garcia, plus music by The Rolling Stones and John Fahey, its musical hipness was never enough to save a sluggish and inert screenplay (written by committee, one writer being Sam Shepard) and blissfully stoned pacing. It is perhaps best remembered for its ridiculous empty-headed ending, which features a mansion being blown up in slow motion over and over again — a dream-like imagining from the female lead at all the bourgeoise-ness around her that led to her lover’s death. While brutally panned by critics — Rolling Stone called it one of the “most extraordinary disasters in modern cinematic history” — Antonioni would redeem himself years later with 1975’s “The Passenger,” perhaps boasting the distinction of being the most oblique (and slowest) picture Jack Nicholson ever starred in.
“Zardoz” (1974) – John Boorman
While his career was never completely impeccable, the man who delivered one deconstructed crime classic (“Point Blank”) and one horrifying thriller that would do for the deep backwoods South what “Jaws” did for the water (“Deliverance”), John Boorman would stumble hard with his sixth feature-length effort, “Zardoz.” What does Boorman do with the carte blanche cachet earned from the hit that was “Deliverance”? Blows it on a sci-fi picture that starts off with a floating-head prologue from a queer magician narrator, before a gigantic stone god head descends upon a planet of savages, proceeds to barf up rifles and tells the heathen “exterminators” to go forth and destroy all the peon “brutals” on earth (the stonehenge deity also gives them this pearl of wisdom: “the gun is good. The penis is evil”). Set in the post-apocalyptic Earth of AD 2293, “Zardoz” centers on a hirsute and Zapatta-moustached exterminator (Sean Connery) who sneaks into the aforementioned Godhead and is accidentally sent to the Vortex, a realm that houses a secret cabal of immortal gods known as Eternals (headed up by ice queen Charlotte Rampling) that are exploiting the masses with this fraudulent “Zardoz” floating head deity and scare tactic. “Wizard of Oz”-like, Connery’s pony-tailed and scruffy chested hero then sets out to reveal their grand scheme. Written, produced and directed by Boorman, god knows why, but this picture was actually a pet project of his, and it might have landed him in permanent director’s jail if it weren’t for the successful “Excalibur” in 1981. Admittedly, the kaleidoscopic visuals, ambitious metaphysical textures and bizarro ending of the last act is impressive — as if Kubrick dropped a little LSD — but ultimately, “Zardoz,” while ironically enjoyable, is indisputable messy; a headscratching and often times unintentionally funny misfire.
Honorable Mentions: Honestly, we could be here all day: the twenty names above are hardly the only directors to misfire at some point (in fact, it’s a good game to try and work out the helmers who never went off the boil, or at least haven’t yet. Kubrick? Hitchcock? Nolan?). But we tried to pick the more interesting films: no-one needs a few hundred words on Rob Reiner’s “North,” even if it’s a classic example of what we’re talking about, an indulgent misfire after which the helmer never seemed to regain his mojo properly.
Nevertheless, a quick list of classic also-rans would include “Honky Tonk Freeway,” for which John Schlesinger was entirely unsuited (his last film “The Next Best Thing,” is also an embarrassment), Robert Wise’s deathly dull “Star Trek: The Motion Picture,” Howard Hawks’ “Rio Lobo,” a pale shadow of his better Westerns, and John Huston’s “Annie,” another example of a great director coming unstuck in the musical genre.
More recently, Ridley Scott’s got a few, most egregiously “1492: Conquest of Paradise” and “A Good Year,” his brother Tony had the nonsensical “Domino,” Paul Verhoeven’s “Showgirls” is legendary in its failure, Mike Nichols’ “Wolf” is something of a misstep, as is Barry Levinson’s “Toys,” while Gus Van Sant seemed to leave his judgement at home for both “Even Cowgirls Get The Blues” and, more notably, “Psycho.”
Furthermore, Frank Darabont’s “The Majestic” was an indulgent, overlong mess, Ang Lee’s “Hulk” was somewhat bonkers, especially for a superhero tentpole (although it’s a film this writer has a great fondness for), Tim Burton never really seemed to get his gifts back after “Planet of the Apes,” and the Coens had two rare duds in a row with “Intolerable Cruelty” and “The Ladykillers.” Oliver Stone’s “Alexander” was a classically hubristic example, whichever cut you see, Wong Kar-Wai faltered in his English language debut “My Blueberry Nights” and Terry Gilliam’s “Tideland” is close to being unwatchable, while “The Good German” isn’t terrible, but, like “At Long Last Love,” is more pastiche than actual movie, and is one of Steven Soderbergh‘s rare misses.